Emily Lee · Building in Public

Emily Lee · Building in Public 💭just documenting what I'm learning along the way.
🎙️Stories & reflections on being human.

09/25/2026

This is my first travel vlog 🫠 all to show that I made $2,659.97 in one day this week, fake money.

The actual live account? Two trades, $31.50. And honestly that’s not even a fair comparison — ten contracts on the sim side, one contract on live. Plus one single sim trade basically carried the whole thing.

I was in San Diego hosting family this week, so I kept it light. Mostly just watched videos, practiced on paper, and tried to actually think through what happened after last week’s blow-up.

I’m keeping myself at one contract until I can prove I can actually win more than 70% of the time across at least 30 real trades. No shortcuts this time.

Week 5 of Dating Options ✅

**Documenting my own trades. Not financial advice.

Options trading | trading journey | female traders | beginner traders | San Diego vlog | Balboa Park | USS midway Museum | Oceanside Pier | Family Vacation

09/22/2026

If you’re a recovering people-pleaser, saying no feels dangerous. 🫣 Even thinking about it makes you anxious.

A friend asks you to help them move this weekend. You’re tired. You already have plans. But the “no” won’t come out — because you’re scared they’ll think you’re a bad friend, and things will end from there.

Saying no feels like losing control. Like we’re giving up the one thing we can actually manage: how needed we are.

But if a friendship only exists because of what you do for someone... is it really worth keeping?

Save this for the next time saying no feels impossible.

What’s the hardest “no” you’ve had to practice? Tell me below.

Yesterday my cat pointed at the invisible podium I keep standing on. Turns out my 100% is often better than someone else...
09/19/2026

Yesterday my cat pointed at the invisible podium I keep standing on. Turns out my 100% is often better than someone else’s 120%. Where would you let 100% be enough? Tell me 💬

09/17/2026

I made one rule after blowing up almost everything I’d rebuilt from the original $980: paper trade only. It didn’t survive till lunch.

Wednesday morning I did exactly what I promised myself. And the strangest part is I was right — I called the direction correctly almost every time. I just kept getting out too early. Anxious. Taking the small win instead of trusting what I’d already called right.

Then the paper session went well enough that a couple hours later, I opened a real position anyway. Ten twenty-eight in the morning. Thirty-four minutes later, closed for a $9 loss.

I’ve done this exact thing with a person too. Told myself no more chances after enough toxic behavior — gave way too many already — then let him back in anyway. Same ending. I already knew how it would go before it went there.

$9 was never the story. Neither was he. It’s how fast “I’m done” turns into “just this once.”

Week 4 done.

Not financial advice, just the truth of trying.

09/15/2026

I think I know where this voice came from.

Growing up as the child of a business owner, I learned time and attention were limited. My mom was running a business and raising three kids. If I created extra work, or needed too much attention, it was easy to feel like I was adding to the burden. So I got really good at knowing when to just disappear.

Some of it was my family. But it wasn’t just my family, it was also growing up in Taiwan. You don’t stand out there. You stay humble. You downplay it, you share the credit, you don’t talk too much about what you’ve done.

I think I started trying to become vanilla. Easy to accept, never taking up too much space.

But I’m not vanilla. I’ll tell you exactly what I think if you ask me. I just trained myself not to offer it first. So why do I still hand it off to someone else the second it’s my turn to be seen?

Ep. 5 — Can I Just Finish?

09/09/2026

Fear made me do two completely opposite things this week, though I didn’t call it fear until I looked back.

Tuesday, I jumped into a trade because it was already moving. No plan, just in. Thursday, I sat there for ten minutes and never clicked buy. Same fear, two different reactions, it’s the double-text-the-second-they’re-online kind of fear, and it’s also the reread-your-own-message-for-ten-minutes-and-never-send-it kind.

But the trade that actually cost me wasn’t Tuesday or Thursday. I took a loss, down almost $88 in one day, and the second it happened I wanted back in immediately. Not to trade well, just to fix the feeling. I wasn’t even looking at the setup anymore, I was refreshing the P&L every few seconds like that was going to change something.

Not proud of it. But I think it’s a normal reaction, and I’m not the only one who’s done that.

If you’ve ever done that, chased a loss the same night, money or a person, just comment 🫣

Still learning that one. Week 3 done.

Not financial advice, just the truth of trying.

09/01/2026

Honestly, I thought content creation might not be for me. That I'm just not cut out for this.

I was so frustrated with the dropping views. After spending a week hosting family and not being able to keep up my consistency streak, I got so upset with myself for not being able to do both. I was obsessively checking the skip rates, the views, and the analytics, trying to find an explanation.

Then, out of the blue, I realized one thing: I am no longer treating the metrics as a reflection of whether I as a person am interesting enough, or even whether the content itself is. I now see metrics simply as a way to gauge which areas of my delivery need refinement.

So many times, we do not allow ourselves to fail or to flop. With one little mistake, we want out because we're afraid of failing. But we need to give it time, testing, and enough consistency to actually show whether it is working or not.

Realizing this is what saved me from jumping off the cliff of giving up on content creation.

08/27/2026

Week 2 of turning $980 into $10k: I thought I’d already learned my lesson in Week 1. Hadn’t. Not even close.

One trade bounced right after I opened it. Looked like it was turning around, so I held, the same way you hold on when someone gives you one good text after a week of silence. It went red again about four minutes later, and I gave back most of what I’d already made that day.

Wasn’t greed — I genuinely thought the reversal was done. It had about four more minutes of red left in it.

Week 1 I sold too early. Week 2 I held too long, on a trade I should’ve closed the first time. Next week I’m setting hard exits before I even open a position.

Not financial advice, just the truth of trying.

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